Students have expressed concerns that due to the online class, the teachers couldn't cover most of the syllabus, as hashtag #syllabuskamkarwao trended on Twitter.
"Our education system is all ratta and our teachers [have] just thrown half of the syllabus at us in one month of online classes which we can't comprehend and now we all students are confused, so #SyllabusKamKaro,” wrote one of the users on Twitter.
Earlier, the Punjab education department announced it has decided to reduce the examination curriculum for all classes for 2021, reported Geo News.
According to the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB), the syllabus for all subjects has been reduced by 40-50 per cent. It had claimed that the board prepared the syllabus in a way where only important topics from all subjects are included.
Schools to resume classes:
Education officials say authorities will start reopening schools from Sept. 15 amid a steady decline in coronavirus deaths and infections. Schools were closed in March when the government enforced a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus.
Authorities lifted curbs on most of the businesses in May, but schools remained closed across the country. Officials said schools will reopen in Punjab and Sindh provinces.
Internet issues and online classes:
As the Covid-19 pandemic made it necessary to move large parts of the education sector online on an emergency basis, it disproportionately affected students along class and ethnic lines. Students from marginalized regions who were earlier studying in major urban centres had been forced by the pandemic to move to their family homes, with their ability to access the internet accordingly hampered.
In parts of Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (especially the former FATA) and Gilgit-Baltistan, connectivity is an absolute zero. Pakistani social media has seen many images of students in such regions sitting in all sorts of settings in a desperate attempt to catch signals: from rocky fields to hilltops. Rather than celebrating these images as a sign of the “resilience” of Pakistani populations – our standard response to people struggling for what should be their birthright – it is important to see them as disturbing symbols of deprivation.